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The futuristic buildings of the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia are likely to be your most photographed locations in the city.

Designed by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava, what was once the riverbed of the River Turia (which was drained and rerouted after a catastrophic flood in 1957), is now home to the City of Arts and Sciences complex (and the adjoining park – which itself is delightful) – the largest cultural-recreational complex in Europe.

You can wander around most areas freely. However, you will need to buy tickets to enter the Hemisfèric, the Science Museum and the Oceanogràfic – which you can buy separately, or combined for entry to all of the buildings.

A wonderful, and very interesting, place for all of the family.

Accessibility:

This is most-definitely an accessible area.

Ramps abound, but if you need to use an elevator, they are very cleverly housed in the conical constructions that you see everywhere. And these are not lifts for general use. You have to ring an intercom, and someone in an office somewhere, looks at you with a video camera before deciding on whether to open the lift door for you 🙂

And accessible toilets can be found inside the buildings. You can wander through the buildings free-of-charge (you only need to buy a ticket if you actually wish to view the exhibitions).

In general, this is an easily accessible area. For detailed information on each of the individual buildings which make up the City of Arts and Science complex though, please see the following. By default, all information is initially in Spanish. However just click on the UK/US flag symbol at the top of a page, and you will instantly get the English-language version:

L’Oceanogràfic: http://www.visitvalencia.com/guia-accesible/Visitar/oceanografic

El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe: http://www.visitvalencia.com/guia-accesible/Visitar/museo-de-las-ciencias-principe-felipe

L’Hemisfèric: http://www.visitvalencia.com/guia-accesible/Visitar/l-hemisferic

El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía: http://www.visitvalencia.com/guia-accesible/Visitar/palau-de-les-arts-reina-sofia

L’Umbracle: http://www.visitvalencia.com/guia-accesible/Visitar/umbracle

Valencia Hotels:

This article was only possible thanks to the very kind support of Ilunion Hotels in Valencia.

I can’t recommend these guys highly enough (over 40% of staff have some form of disability – tourism for all): https://www.ilunionhotels.co.uk/

I particularly recommend their Aqua 4 and Aqua 3 hotels near the City of Arts and Sciences complex (any closer, and they would be inside the complex!).

Other Valencia Hotels:

The two best sources of information for other hotels in Valencia are Trivago and Booking.com (just in case the hotel doesn’t appear on Trivago!)

Have you visited the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia? Please use the “Leave a Reply” feature below, to share any practical information that you have (it doesn’t need to be accessibility-related). Thank you. Iain.